Introductory - Global Sikh Studies

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And the emotional heights that this devotion reached among the
Muslim saints is hardly to be matched elsewhere.
This is only to refute the contention that the Bhaktas of the
Radical school were Hindu reformers and not to suggest that they
were anti-Hiindu-formers and not to suggest anti-Muslim. Nor were
they theological disputants or philosophers who revel in logical and
argument. They were pure and simple mystics who claimed communion
with God. From their mystic experience flowed their universal love,
compassion and humanism. They were not out to criticize any sect or
establish one of their own. Only, they were firm in the expression of
their faith in universal humanism. They accept all that synchronized
with their stand, irrespective of the source from which it came, and
rejected all the did not. This is why the worship of Allah or Ram was
the same to them , provided it denoted the God of their concept.
As a matter of fact, the Radical Bhaktas are more vocal in their
criticism, both in volume and emphasis, of Brahmainism then of Islam.
The Maharashtra saint Namdev calls the Muslims purblind and the
Hindus blind. 9 This is, again, not because these saints were anti-Hindu.
It was because, in their fundamental religious and social approach,
they were nearer Islam than Brahmanism, The concept of the
Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man, though made
exclusive in the Shariatic practice, was common to both. This approach
could not be ideology. Dr. Tara Chand has marshalled good evidence
to show the medical Bhakti movement itself was the product of the
Islamic influence on the Indian culture. When ideologies differ on the
fundamentals, their correspondence on secondary issues becomes
irrelevant and without much significance, Undoubtedly, in their basic
religious humanistic and social approach the Radical Bhaktas were
nearer Islam than Hinduism. Therefore, it would be highly incongruous
to call them Hindu reformers. Evidently, they were not the supporters
of Islam either. The Muslims too came in for severe criticism for their
dogmatic approach, for the rigid rules and practices of Shariat and for
their religious exclusiveness and intolerance. The Radical Bhaktas were,
thus, an independent liberal class by themselves and not reformers of
this or that sect.